DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE SYNDROME? Here’s your remedy!

Long workdays, busy kids, demanding household, short nights... sound familiar?

If you are feeling overworked, constantly tired, frustrated and just plain unhappy, you might be suffering from the famous “desperate housewife syndrome “ 😳.

This is not your usual poor-baby post...😬... In our day and age, we have a tendency to overindulge in compassion and end up wallowing in self-pity... Don’t get me wrong, on this journey called Life a hug, a little “me-time” and “getting it off your chest” are bare essentials, but if we don’t exercise self-discipline the next stop will be “poor me”, a suburb of depression... The signs that it is time to get off of your emotional rollercoaster, are short-temperedness, lack of patience, anxiety, anger, self-destructive thoughts, sadness, etc. These, just so you know, are not "fruit of the spirit" 😆, which means that, somewhere along the way, you have taken a wrong turn. We need to get you back on track!

So...what are my alternatives?🧐

To begin with, common sense tells us that exercise, good nutrition and relaxation are essential to our general wellbeing. Only, when we are already feeling flat we tend to turn a deaf ear to common sense 🙄

The world we live in presents us with a number of methods to cope with our stress, such as sophrology, yoga, meditation, getting professional help (such as a psychologist) or even medication. While some of these are not as “New Age” as they may sound (David mentioned meditation many times in the Psalms), their main focus is destressing the body and mind and have temporary results only. We need to go deeper than that if we want to bring long term relief… Fortunately for you, as a child of God, there are a few very effective methods. You can try them individually, but they work even better when practiced as a whole.

STEP 1: The most difficult step, because it starts with the number one capacity that God has built into your make-up: your ability to choose!

As long as “pity parties” remain your general go-to option, you can forget about experiencing any long term relief.

Like any addict, you too need to exercise a willful choice! You see, self-pity is a very strong addiction that creates behavioral patterns we can only break if we really really want to change.

STEP 2: Change your focus. When I get up all grumpy, I deliberately shift my mood with music. You can use any kind of music, but of course there is a special blessing on God-breathed songs. I either opt for my funky dance youtube playlist of songs reminding me that the joy if the Lord is my strength, (accessible here) or I sing along to worship music to remind me of God’s goodness (check out my playlist with lyrics on Youtube here).

Engaging in worship is an excellent way of shifting the focus from that which is counterproductive (selfishness, etc.) to that which can actually change your situation (aka God😉)

STEP 3: This, people, is the game changer...😏 I have discovered this method in a Kat Kerr-teaching 2 years ago and it has totally changed my life. It is making use of your Christ-given authority to loosen negative stuff from your soul and bind positive stuff into your soul. It’s like cleaning out your closet! You throw away whatever brings you down and buy stuff that makes you look good! Didn't you know that you get to choose what you allow inside your soul…?!

It’s extremely easy to do. You simply say:

“As an act of my will, I loosen from my soul all sadness, negativity, depression, bitterness, selfishness (etc.) in the name of Jesus, and I bind into my soul the joy of the Lord, patience, peace, love, etc.”

While I have always experienced immediate relief, it is also a process that you master and improve on by repeating it every so often.

There is just one catch: you have to choose to renew your mind in order to remain unpolluted. That’s the part that takes discipline and time because we have to:

consciously stop our negative thoughts, direct our imaginations on positive things instead of imagining “what if” scenarios, choose to be forgiving and kind instead of reacting on a flare up of emotions, etc

STEP 4: Get close to God. Logically, this should be step 1, but I have found that, when we are at the worst of places, the last thing that we even want to consider, is talking to God. Strangely, He is the first one we blame for our self-induced messes!

By working my way up through the initial steps, I find that I often have no difficulty to simply melt into His embrace.

So girl (or guy, because these principles apply to everybody!), go soak in the bath and have your glass of wine, go talk to a friend to get that load of your chest. But for crying out loud, allow yourself to be the strong woman God has made you to be by taking hold of His promises and applying His ever effective principles.

And remember, freedom is found on the inside…!